3MT, FMC and SIVB – Plant Ag Grad students shine

Our graduate students have been reaping a whole bunch of awards and are in the news. Here is a list of who won what and the significance of the award and any related stories in the news.

Shanthanu Krishnakumar (or Shan as he is known to many) won the 3 MT National Championship as well as the People Choice Award for his 3 minute thesis presentation. His success is the first for University of Guelph at the National stage. Shan has been invited to present his work and receive the award at the CAGS annual conference at Quebec City, Nov 7-9, 2017. Shanthanu is a Master’s student working with Jay Subramanian, Al Sullivan and Gopi Paliyath on an IDRC funded project His award winning has been covered in several media outlet as follows:

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2017/06/13/eating-niagara-research-aims-to-curb-food-waste

Shanthanu also won the Excellence award for Agricultural students from the Farm Management Canada and the Canadian Association of Diploma in Agriculture Programs (CADAP). His presentation, which can be seen viewed online, was adjudged as the best in the Nation as well.

Lauren Erland - a PhD candidate with Praveen Saxena and Cassandra Downey, a Master’s student with Max Jones won the SIVB travel awards at the recent SIVN conference at Raleigh, North Carolina. Lauren also won the third place in the student presentation (oral) competition and presented her work with Melatonin and Serotonin in plant tissue culture. In the same conference, Kevin Piunno, a Master’s student with Max Jones won the FIRST place at the poster competition. Kevin works on developing 3-D printed material for plant tissue culture and his poster was always surrounded by attendees at the conference!!!!

Congratulations to all our graduate students and keep them coming!